Historical Timeline

1920 - 1929

Clark College and University are united as Clark University, and Wallace W. Atwood, professor of physical geography at Harvard, becomes the first president of the merged Clark University.

Community radio station 1XZ is launched in 1920 by Clark physics Professor Robert Goddard. 1XZ was one of fewer than 20 radio stations in the country at that time.

African-American E. Franklin Frazier earns an M.A. in sociology from Clark. He would go on to direct the Atlanta School of Social Work, earn a Ph.D. from University of Chicago, and chair the department of sociology at Howard University. He wrote extensively on African American family life and in 1955 authored the controversial book "Black Bourgeoisie."

African-American Francis Cecil Sumner earns a Ph.D. in psychology at Clark, the first black person in the U.S. to earn a doctorate in that field. He would go on to found the department of psychology at Howard University.

1921

The School of Geography is founded and is now the oldest sustained graduate program of geography in the U.S. It now also offers undergraduate majors.